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'''[[Wild Weasel|Wild Weasels]]''' are the aircraft crews who try to [[Airstrike Impossible|sniff out and kill enemy anti-aircraft defenses]] ahead of other air missions, as well as the pop-culture name for that mission. They show up in some flight sims and a few pieces of war literature, but not quite enough to be their own trope; nevertheless, while stories of fighters-versus-SAMs aren't ''quite'' as glamorous as hot fighter-on-fighter action (and thus gets way less exposure in popular culture), they're still a very important component of aerial warfare, not to mention an eternal part of the Vietnam War for pilots. In short, they handle [[Escort Mission|Escort Missions]] where the main threat is a [[Macross Missile Massacre]] from surface-to-air missiles instead of enemy aircraft.
=== If I Can't Have It, Neither Can You: Surface-to-Air Threats ===
The whole purpose of surface-to-air missiles and guns is to deny the airspace immediately above and around the launcher to enemy forces. These are covered under [[Modern Battlefield Weapons]], but for the most part they fulfill the same role: to make life hell for bomber and fighter-bomber crews. As the [[Yanks With Tanks]] learned during the [[Vietnam War]], trying to bomb targets without first suppressing air defenses can lead to truly horrific loss ratios. The vast majority of US aircraft lost over 'Nam were to ground fire and strategic SAM batteries, in particular the feared [[Reporting Names|SA-2 Guideline]], the most widely-deployed long-range SAM. Antiaircraft gunfire and most infrared-guided missiles like the SA-7 and the Redeye could be avoided by flying high enough (4,000 feet to avoid the worst of the small arms for a fast-moving fighter, and 20,000 feet was usually plenty to dodge the heavy AA guns), but that puts you right in the center of the engagement envelope for SA-2s--and, as a certain Francis Gary Powers learned, you can't outclimb a missile. Unless the SAM commander was especially careless, there was no way to stay out of their engagement envelope while attacking the high-value target they were guarding. What was worse, the strategic SAMs were often located far behind the front line, meaning that the [[Tactical Rock
=== Into the Den: Meet the Weasels ===
Actually, the idea was [[A Simple Plan|basic enough]]: fit a "Wild Weasel" aircraft with basic radio-detection equipment, add in an additional couple of wingmen, and have it [[Escort Mission|accompany the flight of bombers]]. At some point, some enemy search radar--say, a "[[Reporting Names|Fan Song]]" radar for the SA-2--will light up your formation. The Weasel chases down the direction of the radar signal with his wingmen right behind him; if the SAM locks on to him and launches, it's [[High
(Not coincidentally, the unofficial motto of the Wild Weasels was "YGBSM", for "[[You Have Got to Be Kidding Me!|You Gotta Be Shittin' Me!]]", reportedly [[Oh Crap|the response]] of the first Weasel <s>[[Insistent Terminology|pilot]]</s> [[Guy in Back|Electronic Warfare Officer]] when he learned ''just'' what his mission entailed.)
So, in 1965, the US Air Force authorised a special unit of aircraft and aircrew to tackle this mission. Flying two-seater F-100F fighter-bombers, they marked the first time in the history of aerial warfare where aircraft had to seek out and neutralize the threat of surface-to-air missiles like the [[Reporting Names|SA-2 Guideline]]. The F-100 proved unsuitable and was replaced successively by the F-105G Thunderchief and the F-4E Phantom, two of the most iconic Vietnam-era aircraft (the Navy used A-4 Skyhawks and A-6B Intruders to cover their own strikes). At the start, the aircraft had to perform two missions: "Iron Hand" to suppress enemy radar sites (by launching Shrike missiles and forcing them to stay off the air) and "Wild Weasel" to seek out and kill the missile batteries themselves. As time went by, both terms were [[Popcultural Osmosis|merged under the Wild Weasel name]]; technically, the ''mission'' is called "SEAD", for "'''S'''uppression of '''E'''nemy '''A'''ir '''D'''efenses", while the ''planes'' are called "Wild Weasels", after the very aggressive predator that would chase its prey into its den if it had to. The first Weasel "kill" came in December 1965, as recounted [http://edefense.blogspot.com/2005/11/in-their-own-words-8-eleven-stories.html in the pilot's own words].
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=== Shrikes and Standards: Antiradar Missiles ===
One of the biggest problems with the first Weasel missions was actually ''finding'' the radar site to attack. Even with the radar broadcasting all the way, the direction-finding equipment was pretty primitive; it couldn't tell you how far the radar site was, and it wasn't precise enough to triangulate on a specific site. Plus, the radars and missiles tend to be disguised (like, say, under a thatched roof). Finding a radar site often meant flying low in the direction of the radar, ''praying'' that some machine-gunner on the ground [[Million
Then, somebody got a great idea for an anti-radiation missile (ARM): instead of the ''aircraft'' chasing down the radar site and having to find it, why not fit sensors into a missile that would seek out the strongest source of radar signals and home in on it? And thus, the [[Air
The Shrike was quickly followed up by the Navy-built AGM-78 Standard. These were bigger, faster, and--most importantly--had a function that allowed them to "remember" the location of a SAM site, so that they had a chance to hit even after the radar had shut down, albeit with reduced accuracy. However, they were much more expensive than the Shrike and much heavier--a given aircraft couldn't carry as many Standards as Shrikes. The AGM-78 was mainly used as a supplement to the AGM-45 in Vietnam.
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=== Exploiting the Terrain: [[Geo Effects]] [[In Space|IN THE AIR!]] ===
The whole business of SAM hunting was a fair bit more complicated than just lofting Shrikes and Standards at whatever Fan Song radar lit up the sky. One big problem was that of range: a single SA-2 weighed 5,000 pounds, and most of that was rocket propellent; that gave it a far longer reach than the short-ranged Shrike missiles. The antiradar missiles would rarely put an entire SAM site out of commission for long: the standard SA-2 battery consisted of six launcher vehicles in a "Star of David" formation around the radar van, plus a small fleet of support vehicles and stockpiled missiles. The missile would only kill the radar van, if it hit at all (and if the radar was turned on--always a big ''if''). Plus, there was the question of flight time: the SA-2 was ''fifty percent'' faster than the Shrike, and still significantly faster than the Standard, meaning that a SA-2 could launch its missile, guide it to its target, and turn itself off to avoid the incoming ARM.
So, despite the addition of the Shrike and the Standard to the Wild Weasel arsenal, flying SEAD often entailed closing in on the radar site and hitting it the hard way, with unguided bombs and rockets. Just getting close enough was a real challenge: aircraft had to skim the treetops and hide in valleys to avoid radar exposure. Low-altitude flight, in turn, meant increased vulnerability to shoulder-fired missiles and antiaircraft guns, the number-one cause of aircraft losses in Vietnam. Add in the ''many'' tips and tricks on the propagation of radio waves, jamming, chaff, ECCM, and you could see why Weasel crews call it "a game of chess in 3-D, and the opposition cheats". Because Wild Weasel missions take place at low altitude, terrain matters. (This is also why what applies for land-based SEAD doesn't always work for attacking navies: over a flat ocean, there are no canyons to hide in. Barring stealth technology or truly exceptional ECM work, you're not getting within 30 miles of a competent radar screen without being detected.)
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=== Post Vietnam ===
The US [[Incredibly Lame Pun|piloted]] Wild Weasel techniques in Vietnam, so most cases of pop culture that ''do'' feature SEAD missions are drawn from/inspired by the Vietnam-era missions. However, in the roughly forty years since the war, the fighter-versus-SAM conflict has continued in various parts of the world, although not on the same scale as Vietnam. The most immediate example came just after the US pulled out from Vietnam, during the [[Arab
For the US, the F-4G Wild Weasel-dedicated variant and the AGM-88 HARM, the successor to both the Shrike and the Standard, came into service, where they proved very deadly against Soviet-made SAMs in Libya and Iraq. As a measure of ''just'' how far the Wild Weasel mission has come since its birth, note that Baghdad's air defense system [[Gulf War|in 1991]] was estimated to be ''triple'' the thickness of Hanoi's. [[Technology Marches On|It was comprehensively smashed in a matter of weeks, thanks in no small part to new weapon systems like cruise missiles and the F-117 stealth fighter.]] The USAF is one of comparatively few services to maintain a dedicated Wild Weasel platform, the F-16CJ; most other air forces have taken the US Navy approach of fitting EW pods and antiradar missiles to multirole aircraft for the SEAD role.
The advent of armed remote controlled drones combined with improvements to stealth technology has further changed the nature of Wild Weasel missions. As drones are unmanned and relatively cheap, they can be used to great effect in distracting air defenses. Drones (which are no-where near as fast or dangerous as figher-bombers, and are not attractive targets for SAMs) crowd the radar screen and draw fire while stealth aircraft power in and attack. While there is no such thing as a perfect stealth, when they are visible on radar they produce very small signatures, comparable to drones. In practice it makes it incredibly difficult for SAM crews to know what to shoot at, and what is actually attacking them.
Similarly, the advent of AWACS air-born radar/control centres and space base surveillance technologies has greatly reduced losses in anti-SAM missions. Knowing where SAMs are positioned practically eliminates the need to place aircraft in harms way. Modern terrain skimming cruise missiles can hit with superb effectiveness at extreme ranges and are next to impossible to shoot down. In response to this, SAM crews move their positions constantly and place radar reflectors, although this does not protect them from commando units marking targets. Similarly, once a SAM site goes active and gives its position away, modern GPS, inertial guidance and AWACS control can guide a weasels missiles to where they need to be with a great degree of certainty, regardless of radars being active.
As with most things in modern combat, the advantages are all with the attackers. Even assuming that you have no knowledge of a SAM site's location and have no ability to kill it from safe range, wild weasel missions are not as dangerous as they once were. Stealth technology allows planes to get into position with decreased risk, and improved on-board computers allows for faster tracking and (combined with smarter missiles) the ability to strike at targets even when radars are off.
In practice, SAM systems by themselves can only really slow down a large, modern airforce. The only real defense is a similarly sized and funded air force, and even then the defenders are still at a huge disadvantage, as they have to spread their forces around the clock.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Wild Weasel]]
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